A Mysterious Broder Appears

As an exclusive Jose Canseco baseball card collector for 29 years, there is almost nothing I haven’t seen or know about. Frankly, as my collection pushes 2,000 different cards, there are three definite reasons why a card doesn’t make it into my collection.

The main one is, lack of funds. I have a nice job, a happy family, and baseball cards take up very little of my time and attention. If I have to choose between a trip to Disney or a $1,000 card, I’ll let Tanman splurge. It’s just cardboard.

The second is simply procrastination. This year, on my 29th as a Canseco collector, I finally registered with all three big sites (eBay, SportsLots, COMC) and went on a binge. For the longest, I just stuck to eBay and card shows. What’s the big rush?

Finally, the third is lack of interest in a particular card. Look, I love unlicensed, “Broder” cards as much as the next card addict but at some point you just have enough damn cards and the idea of buying another just doesn’t appeal to me.

That being said, this is not the case. Below is a “Broder” card from somewhere around 1988-1991 that I’ve never seen in my 29 years of collecting Jose. Big spender, Tanner, hasn’t either and he’s known for finding rare cards.

Unfortunately, the seller only states that her card shop gave them away in the early-90s. That alone is hard to believe considering how popular Jose was. It is standard size and has a blank back. Also, in case you can’t tell … the card is made of metal.

Recently, one of these from the seller sold for $16+ and today another sold for $15 before I could buy it. With today’s technology, a card like this is probably easy to make but the question is why would anyone waste their time with someone like Canseco?

I believe this card may just be one of the most rare, unlicensed baseball cards of the “Junk Wax” era. When two Canseco-collecting juggernauts with nearly 60 years experience between them have never seen it, you know it’s something special.

So my question to collectors is: Have you ever seen a card like this? Surely if they made Jose, there is a Nolan, a Cal, maybe even a Ken Griffey Jr. So what is this card and its origin? The world may never know.